What would you say to Supporting a Temporary Migratory Habitat Initiative in the state of Iowa that paid producers x dollars per acre to seasonally pump 1 to 60 acres of crop residual ( Stubble ) for enhanced public waterfowling Opportunity?

Would you Support such a thing by an increase in the state Migratory Stamp fee $25 dollars?

The above is something I have long thought to be a positive program that not only put more habitat on the ground but also as a great tool to enhance and improve waterfowl hunting opportunities as a whole. Understanding past & present and future land use policies other alternative management tools may be in order to not only reach more of the landscape but as a means to support the growth of our duck hunter numbers that in turn perpetuate the support that is needed to sustain traditional conservation programs that secure permanent habitat on the landscape.

Again I would just like to hear your thoughts to the above questions. I am not looking to figure out what the cost is to pumping or any other question that you might think about pertaining to what could be very complex if we at least not try to keep the subject in line with the simple questions asked above. The harder questions or other related issues come after a general opinion to the above questions.

Again guys a few general questions that I would like to get some general opinion to. I am not going to argue my questions one time and will only respond to this post if a person posts a question. Other than that I just want to read what you guys think about the above as a possible waterfowl hunting management tool / option.

clif could you tell me how pumping water from a well and adding 6 to 10" of water to residual would destroy good ag land?I think if you look at the true benefits of adding said water to stubble you will find more benefits to doing so that saves money and adds money to the botom line. We are not talking about adding water for 9 months, we are talking about nothing more than what most see these days as sheet water and would not cover entire acres. Some places could be 1 to 2 acres in size or 5 to 10 but limited to 60.

There is a big difference between water in the summer sitting in the fields for months VS water in the field after harvest through fall and early winter.

I think most guys when they hear this at first think we are talking massive amounts of acres on 1 farm. Maybe 1 to 10 acres is about perfect and we could do a lot of them and manage that with ease. The state already has the best hydric soils data base and they can find the right locations to provide the best results. That is one thing about Iowa, some cases we are ahead of the rest in tec and in some cases we are still back in the stone age.

I have a test site and going to be working on getting some ISU folks to do some study stuff on residual break down, nitrate study, pest and herbacide study, fuel study. A bunch of things. I said going to try to get them to do some research to complete some other portions of residual surface retention in the Ricelands study book.

They do study the effects on soybean stubble and genetic mod rice stubble which is harder than BT corn stubble to break down with in normal disking practicies but they add just a litle bit of water to it and bam decomposition rates jump of the charts.

So would these areas provide "Public Hunting" opportunities to the average hunter. It sounds like you are talking about flooding (for lack of a better term) private fields. Will these then be made available for public access? How would access be managed?

I apologize if these are naive questions, but I'm just trying to understand the issue.